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An ITV documentary will claim tonight to have identified two suspects in the IRA Birmingham pub bombings.

The suspects will be named as a former labourer who was a teenager at the time of the atrocity, and an ex-British soldier turned IRA terrorist. The ex-soldier James Francis Gavin, who is now dead, has been identified before in connection with the Birmingham bombings. The second man, who now lives in Belfast and is in his 60s, has never previously been named in public.

The new suspect strenuously denies any involvement in the attack when the allegations were put to him by ITV Exposure, which is being broadcast on Monday.

The bomb attacks on two pubs in Birmingham on November 21 1974, left 21 people killed and 220 injured. The so-called Birmingham Six were found guilty of the murders a year later but the convictions were overturned in one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice.

The scene outside the Tavern in the Town pub

The documentary claims that the Crown Prosecution Service has previously examined the case against the suspect and concluded there is insufficient evidence to charge him.

The programme - called The Hunt for the Birmingham Bombers - will allege that the men, both part of an IRA cell in Birmingham, are suspects who may have planted the bombs in the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs.

The younger, alleged bomber was convicted of terrorism offences in 1976 and sentenced to ten years in jail for a bombing campaign in the West Midlands in 1974, separate from the Birmingham pub attacks. In those attacks nobody was killed.

When confronted by John Ware, the veteran documentary maker behind the ITV Exposure programme, the suspect said: “I’ve got nothing to say… Well, you can ask what you want, but I’m not going to answer… You’re wasting your time.”

ITV Exposure says the suspect’s ‘charge sheet’ is similar to a description of the suspect spoken to by Chris Mullin, a journalist and former Labour minister, who had campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six. Mr Mullin declined to say if the suspect identified by ITV Exposure is the same man he spoke to. He told the programme: “I’m not naming that individual, whoever was the young planter.”

The Birmingham Six with Chris Mullin (centre) celebrate the quashing of their convictions

Court documents obtained by ITV Exposure show that during the police investigation into the ‘young planter’ for the other offences,

He was questioned about his links to the pub attacks. The suspect admitted that he knew there were going to be attacks on the night of the pub bombings.

In his interview with West Midlands Police Detective Chief Inspector, Tom Banks, the suspect said: “To tell you the truth, I was told there was something going to happen but I didn’t know there was going to be people killed.”

Julie Hambleton and campaigners outside the High CourtCredit:
Richard Vernalls

Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was murdered in the Birmingham pub bombings and who now runs the campaign group Justice4the21, said: “If these men are going to be named on television it is absurd they cannot be named in the inquests. It makes a mockery of our justice system. We don’t know if these men are responsible but we would like that to be examined and the inquest should be doing that.”

The suspect’s lawyer told ITV: “Our client denies all the allegations … and does not intend to respond any further to the unfounded allegations you have made.”

The Hunt For The Birmingham Bombers is due to be broadcast on ITV at 10.40pm on Monday Oct 1